Cybersecurity is analogous to securing your house – there are several steps you take to keep your valuables safe, such as locking doors, windows, perhaps a sensor light and an alarm system.
Each acts as both a deterrent and hopefully as a preventative measure. And unless you have a lot of money at your disposal and time to set everything up perfectly every time, given enough purpose and time someone with the right skills could probably defeat each of these mechanisms. Security is about risk mitigation, making it harder or much less likely that you will lose your valuables, and the more valuable those things are, the more you should invest in your security.
Cybersecurity at a high level can be thought of as having three crucial elements; people, policies/process, and technology. It is important to understand that there is more than just technology at play when protecting organisational and digital assets and information. Both your people and your technology are on the front line when defending what your organisation has worked hard to create. Supporting your staff in their efforts to protect the business are the policies and process that you develop and implement so everyone is educated and working together to keep the information part of Information Technology (IT) safe.
It is common as an IT manager or CIO tasked with the responsibility of protecting the company’s data, their customer’s data, and by extension the company’s reputation, to focus on technology and policies for prevention and detection of threats.
Public consciousness of cyber threats is being raised through greater media coverage; disastrous impacts on companies drive home the fact that these threats are real and the risk is relevant to everyone. It is now understood that cyber threats are a business problem, not just an IT problem, and everyone at the company is responsible for an element of protecting the organisation. Overlook the people element of your cybersecurity profile at your own risk.
People in the organisation and interactions with 3rd party partners form a highly important barrier to potentially disastrous data leakage/loss or malicious attacks. An example of this is awareness of security and the need to be vigilant through constant awareness training – just the same as asking people to be aware of cars tailgating through barriers or suspicious persons walking around the grounds/inside the premises. It is about putting the right level of organisational structure in place, about executive-level buy-in to the importance of protecting digital assets and considering it in the same level as physical access or risk of manufacturing equipment failure.
Linktech helps organisations understand their holistic cybersecurity posture and works to identify gaps. Through workshops with key personnel, we assist with prioritisation of security profile uplifts, ensuring quick wins and relevant steps are undertaken to right-size your security in accordance with your needs. Feel free to reach out if you’d like to discuss how you can protect your organisation.